Where Have I Been?

And where am I going?

You might have noticed the posting cadence on Bluster and Brine has slackened. At least, I hope you’ve noticed. If not, this is going to be awkward.

I give a bunch of excuses below, but also what you can expect in the near future.

1. I Got Laid Off in March

A lot of this is going around. It’s the second time I’ve been laid off in my life, but this one stung. I had been with the company for over 10 years and would probably have stuck around for another 10, if given the choice. But it wasn’t my choice.

Naturally, I had to find another source of income. God was kind to me, and I landed plenty of freelance work to support my family. Maybe a little too much work, but that was my fault.

It was easier to get a paying client than it was to get a phone interview in this job climate. I had trouble saying “no,” for fear of some other source drying up. I was making plenty of money, but with an increase in stress and a decrease in free time.

Equilibrium has been achieved. For now. I think I’ve found my sea legs and can handle the wobbling of the deck and all the vagaries that come with kickstarting a new business. Necessity forces you to learn real quick.

That being said, every single paid subscription here or at Foundation Father helps ease the pressure a bit. I’m thankful for each and every one of you.

2. I Have a Book Deal

My middle-grade postapocalyptic novel, How to Slay a Giant, is due to be released through Canon Press next Spring or early Summer. With the copious amounts of free time that I don’t have, I’ve been working on the final round of edits, to be submitted this month. So that’s where a lot of my creative energy has gone. This work, combined with the complete upheaval of my professional life, has limited the other writing I can do.

But this part is almost finished.

I can’t wait to get this book into your hands. Your kids are going to love it. Pure adventure and a bombastic fusion of fantasy and modern tech.

After these edits, I’ll also have time to keep working on the first draft of the sequel, currently sitting at 10,000. I plan to have the first draft done before the end of the year.

I’ve found I can be productive with writing new prose in smaller chunks of time. All it takes is 45 minutes to get a few hundred words hammered out. Deep editing, however, takes more brain power and juggling of moving parts. I need to grasp the whole and be surgical rather than charge ahead. For this reason, 90-minute blocks are the minimum for my editing sessions. Much harder to squeeze into the margins.

Not having something to edit will net me more time and brain cycles.

Once the book is open for pre-orders, this will be one of the first places I post the information.

3. I Launched an App For Memorizing Scripture and Poetry

It’s been a while since I’ve coded anything from scratch, and I wanted to try out some of the new AI coding tools. I started using Cursor, and one month later, had a fully functional app.

It’s called Incordium. Duolingo for English poetry and Scripture. Start memorizing something from the growing public library, or add your own passages. The app will break it up into snippets and guide you through memorizing something step by step.

One account can serve an entire family. See a quick demo below:

The app is free to try forever. A premium account is cheap, especially since your whole family can use it. However, the first five subscribers who sign up for a premium account will get 50% off the yearly price for life. That’s only $25 per year. Just use code “MAFRANKLIN50”.

And if you have anything you want to add to the public library, let me know.

I was honestly blown away by how much I could do with Cursor. However, I’m a web developer by trade, and knew what to ask. Grasp of the vocabulary was especially important for the spit and polish. It kept the AI from going too wild, like bumpers in a bowling lane. I’ll expound more on my experience in another post.

What You Can Expect

Attentive readers will notice that 2 of my 3 excuses above have now been resolved. My job situation has stabilized (for now). I will continue to promote and maintain Incordium, but that takes far less time than building it from scratch.

The third and final excuse, the edits for my book, should be wrapped up this month. I’ll be able to get back to a regular cadence very soon. Here are my current plans.

I have a few posts simmering in my read, ready to pour out of my fingertips:

• Why Comparing KPop Demonhunters to Frozen is Unfair

• Why the Broken Men Are Heroes - A Review of Shane

• The Athenian Empire and AI

An Experiment in Serialization

Beyond these, I might start publishing a serialized novel here. It’s called Whip, and it’s a satire about a guy who gets fired for saying something innocuous. Complete fiction, I assure you. Woke is dead, I’m told.

But if so, its corpse is still animated and wandering around, giving off a terrible stench, getting in the way, and occasionally biting people when someone stops paying attention.

I’m convinced the novel is still relevant. It’s hard to satire this stuff because the truth is so insane, but I’ve found an angle that works and is, so far, funny and recognizable.

The first three chapters are done. I could start posting them after I’m done with the edit for my middle-grade novel. I’m not sure of the cadence yet. It might be once every two weeks or once a month.

If you’re interested in this serialized satire, let me know.

Thanks for sticking with me this far.